Retired Boomers Have One Big Regret
8th October 2024
Insider, a Voice of the Crust.
Ron Sherman has always had what he considers a typical baby-boomer attitude toward work: You’re loyal to your employer, you give 100%, and you never call out sick unless you really have to — and even then, you might try to push through anyway.
Work, however, has not always had that same attitude toward him. Sherman has been laid off three times in his career: once after his company was bought out, once after his job was shipped overseas (he trained his replacement), and, most recently, after his team at a major cable company was downsized. “Three strikes, you’re out,” he somewhat painfully jokes. The company says age has nothing to do with it and that it was about title, but Sherman, who is 67, notes that everyone who was cut from his team was over 60. As he contemplates whether it’s time to retire, the callousness with which his past employers treated him is making him rethink his give-it-all-on-the-job attitude.
“I was sort of raised that you do a hard day’s work and you’re honest, and things will work out for you — it’s a two-way street between you and your employer,” he says. “But I found out that’s truly not the case.”